Climatology: A Textbook Example of Groupthink

In groupthink, organizations value consensus more than free thought. The emphasis on consensus leads to group polarization, in which a group’s positions become more extreme than any individual would come up with. Alarmist climate science is a textbook example of groupthink in action.

...The groupthink syndrome...

This consists of three main categories of symptoms:

1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.”

2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]

3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]

_Paul McRae...in_WUWT

A description of "the groupthink syndrome" also happens to be a good description of the current state of climate scientology science. Particularly troubling is the lack of sceptical doubt among climate orthodoxy insiders. Without scientific scepticism and critical self-monitoring, the climate orthodoxy becomes indistinguishable from a religious belief.

Instead of a healthy scepticism, orthodox climate science and a suspiciously compliant mainstream press attempt to block all thoughtful consideration of the deeper issues involved in climate -- which go far beyond concerns about greenhouse gases such as CO2. But it is only through consideration of the deeper issues that a true scientific examination of climate can be carried out.

Here are a few of the current debates and theories which are being blocked by the orthodoxy:

Total Cloud Cover from Satellite Observations and Climate Models

How Stratospheric Temperature is Decoupled from Surface Temperatures

Levitus on Ocean Forcing

etc etc etc

The astoundingly insular nature of modern climate science would not be particularly important, if it were not for the political, economic, and industrial implications for modern societies. Modern societies would be ruined -- bankrupted -- if they were to take the policy recommendations of the climate orthodoxy seriously. Such societies would be left without reliable energy supplies, starving industry and commerce. Trillions of dollars in redistribution payments from the first world to the third world would drive modern nations even more deeply into debt than at present -- and for no good reason at all. Perhaps worst of all, the barrage of propaganda directed at modern societies to keep them compliant with the "greenhouse agenda" would create generations of schoolchildren and adults incapable of thinking logically, beyond their groupthink greenhouse programming.

And yet that is precisely what orthodox politicians such as Barack Obama, Al Gore, and other fringe greens currently and formerly in power want to do.

Groupthink is toxic to the ability of the human mind to think clearly and independently. It is destructive of creativity and productive imagination. It is destructive of any hopeful or livable future for the majority of humans -- those living outside the inner circles of power.

Unless the voters of the western democracies wake up to the nightmare of groupthink conformity which is being forced on them by the climatological - political - faux environmental complex, it will be too late for them to stop the top-down steamroller of hopelessness and opportunity destruction.

At that point, alternative plans would have to be called upon.

Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.

More: The Shocking Rise of Eco-Fascism